Megalopolis (Arcadian city)
Megalopolis, known as the "Great City," is an ancient city located in Arcadia, central Peloponnese, Greece, near the river Helisson. Founded in 369/368 BC by the Theban general Epaminondas, it served as a strategic stronghold against Sparta and became the seat of the Arcadian League's Assembly. The city incorporated numerous neighboring communities, including abandoned villages, making it one of the largest cities in the region. Megalopolis is notable for its mint, which produced coins featuring deities such as Zeus Lycaeus and Pan, along with the name of Arcadia.
Despite its initial prominence, the city faced challenges after Epaminondas's death in 362 BC, including threats from Spartans and later conflicts during the Hellenistic period. Although the city experienced periods of tyrannical rule and destruction, it also saw efforts for revival by influential figures like Philopoemen and historian Polybius. In the Roman era, while it faced decline, some infrastructure improvements were made. Today, archaeological excavations have revealed significant structures, including the agora, theater, and remnants of the sanctuary of Zeus, reflecting the city's historical significance.
Subject Terms
Megalopolis (Arcadian city)
A city of Arcadia in the central Peloponnese (southern Greece), situated in a plain beside the river Helisson, two and a half miles from its junction with the Alpheus (of which the Helisson was one of seven tributaries)
Megalopolis, the `Great City,’ was founded by the Theban general Epaminondas in 369/368 BC as a stronghold to defend the southern Arcadians against Sparta. It was also the seat of the `Ten Thousand,’ the Assembly of the Arcadian League; this federal capital, on the north bank of the river, was given the additional name of Oresteia. Most of the borderland communities were incorporated—including (according to Pausanias) forty villages completely abandoned for the purpose of this amalgamation. The new city which thus came into existence was one of the largest in the Peloponnese, and possessed the most extensive territory in Arcadia. Coins were issued at its mint bearing the heads of Zeus Lycaeus and the figure of Pan seated on a rock, and displaying the name of Arcadia in a monogram.
However, after the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea (362) and the subsequent disintegration of the Arcadian League, the inhabitants of Megalopolis were only with difficulty, by the intervention of the Theban Pammenes, prevented from returning to their former homes. Persistent Spartan hostility prompted an appeal to Athens (352)—which, although supported by the orator Demosthenes, proved fruitless—and drove the Megalopolitans into friendship with Philip II of Macedonia. When the Spartans and other Greeks rebelled against Alexander the Great's regent Antipater (331), Megalopolis successfully resisted them in the course of a long siege; and its small surviving population also withstood another Macedonian claimant to Greece, Polyperchon (318).
In the third century, with a brief intermission (251–244), the Megalopolitans were under the autocratic rule of local `tyrants,’ the last of whom, Lydiadas, brought the city into the Achaean League (235), retaining his leadership, for most of the time, until the Spartan king Cleomenes III killed him in battle (227). In 223 Cleomenes plundered Megalopolis, but in the following year its eminent citizen Philopoemen, the Achaean statesman, restored the city. Similarly, after the Roman annexation (146), another distinguished native of the place, the historian Polybius, intervened constantly to mitigate its lot: a necessary task, since a comic poet quoted by Strabo declared that `the Great City is a great desert.’ In imperial times it received a new bridge and portico, during the reigns of Augustus (31 BC–AD 14) and Domitian (AD 81–96) respectively. By the time of Pausanias (c 150), however, it lay for the most part in ruins. Nevertheless, it resumed the issue of coinage from Septimius Severus (193–211) to Elagabalus (218–22); some of these pieces celebrate the Lycaean Games, in honor of Zeus Lycaeus.
Pausanias' description has greatly assisted excavators, who have uncovered the agora, part of the sanctuary of Zeus (the rest has been washed away by the Helisson), and two extensive porticos. South of the river are extensive remains of the theater—which Pausanias described as the largest in Greece; it was equipped with a long Doric portico, which served both as a backdrop to the stage and as the entrance to a large rectangular colonnaded council house identified as the Thersilion (named after the architect) of the Ten Thousand. But this building was destroyed by Cleomenes III of Sparta, and never reconstructed.